Airport Link And Trans-Pennine Boost From Osborne

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 CHANCELLOR George Osborne is expected to announce a £30bn programme of infrastructure investment during his autumn Budget statement on Tuesday.

Around £20bn of the National Infrastructure Plan will be paid for from pension funds in the National Association of Pension Funds and the Pension Protection Fund. Up to £5bn will come from public spending cuts. The rest will come from Chinese investment.

The money will be used to cover the cost of 40 infrastructure projects, including new road programmes and improvements to the rail network.

A new dual carriageway is proposed to link M56 at Manchester airport to the A6 south of Stockport.

The long-awaited electrification of the Transpennine rail route from Manchester to Leeds is also expected to get the go-ahead.

Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, told the BBC: "We're putting in place a new arrangement with private pension funds - which is the first time this has been done in this country -to try [to] unlock pension fund money to go into infrastructure."